Helping Hands

Last Tuesday I got notice that our stake needed volunteer helping hands to go to New Orleans to help with flood cleanup this past weekend. I adjusted things around to go and was able to find a ride with some other brothers going down. I gathered my camping gear and tools, and packed some food, and left Tryn to deal with the various activities of the children for the weekend.

We left Friday about 2:45 and got to LaPlace, LA about 11:15 pm Central time and set up our tents on the lawn behind the church. Up early on Saturday, we put in a full day's work - our group did four work orders that day.

Essentially we went into houses and gutted them from the floor up to four feet up the wall. The water had reached up to 4 feet in the houses, and in the streets it had submerged and ruined thousands of vehicles.

We took out of the house carpeting, flooring, wall board, insulation, cabinets, appliances, etc. In some houses we also had to take out furniture and all their personal belongings. We piled everything on the yard by the curb for the trucks to haul away. The walls were moldy, the carpet was wet with 2-3 week of old water, and the air stank. We wore mold-protecting masks.

Along the streets, at house after house, neighborhood after neighborhood, there were piles of these families' every worldy possession, things they had accumulated and treasured over a lifetime. As we drove between work orders, we talked about how much care we put into selecting so many purchases - the new sofa, the appliances, etc. In the end, all the stuff was lost. We wondered if you would start purchasing cheaper stuff, and just make do with it.

A single mother we helped had been renting and had a short deadline to get everything out so the landlord could get crews working on the house. She was weeping, having lost everything; she seemed particularly concerned about the family pictures. And she didn't have renters insurance. The house was absolutlely revolting. It seemed the house hadn't been opened since the storm, and the stench was almost unbearable, with mold halfway up the walls staining the birthday cards and other memorabilia the girls had taped to their walls. We sloshed through sodden carpets, loaded books slippery and fuzzy with mildew, ruined clothing, bedding, dishes and everything else into wheelbarrows and dumped it on the curb. As we worked, an amazing thing happened. This woman began to smile and reminisce and talk with her daughters. It seemed that we had relieved a huge load for her just by dealing with that overwhelming task of cleaning out the stuff of her life. She had her daughters, and the sun was shining, and she could bear to face another day.

One lady said she had been through this four times in various homes, but for most of the people we helped it was the first time. Their area had never flooded before. They might have lost some shingles in previous hurricanes, but hadn't been hit like New Orleans. It seems that when the flood walls were built after Katrina to protect New Orleans, they did what they were supposed to do. They diverted the water and so spared New Orleans to some great extent from Isaac. Instead, the walls forced all that water upriver to the other parishes that hadn't previously been in flood zones. One guy told me that if they were to now come and protect his parish with walls, it would just push the flooding further up to other parishes, and that wasn't right.

Someone (engineers, politicians anyone?) must have known that building the walls might have this effect, but they either discounted the importance, or were overruled by someone else. If they were simply ignorant of the impact, they weren't doing their full job, but if they consciously diverted the devastation, I'd like to know what calculus of value they used to justify it.

It made me think of the numerous effects of various actions and policies we take as individuals and organizations. And I thought how careful we must be in our decisions and policies. There are almost always unintended consequences to every policy, even well-intentioned ones. And too often the people hurt are unrelated to the policy or action and had no say in the first place. Examples of negative unintended consequences are rife in public policy, where policy makers think they can "fix" problems while failing to understand or acknowledge the ramifications of their own plans. Then they monkey with things again to fix the fix and we have an unending cycle of bureaucrats playing God, only without the omniscience nor the perfect benevolence. That's why I belive in free markets, where millions of individuals make their own choices.

The unintended consequences occur with these decisions also, but generally there's no pretense or propaganda about how this master policy is for the general good of the society. Even in our own personal and familial decisions we can't contain all the impacts. The best we can do is to try to weigh the decisions with as much foresight and wisdom as we can, and then seek God's guidance and follow it. Then we rely on his tender mercies and the grace of our Savior that all things will work together for our good.

Sunday morning we had a brief sacrament meeting for the hundreds of volunteers there.  We were all in yellow "helping hands" t-shirts, and a friend remarked to me, "People tell me they think Mormons all look alike, but I just don't know what they mean." We praised our Heavenly Father in hymns and prayers, and partook of the holy sacrament. Then the parish president thanked us, and one brother gave about a five minute talk.

He quoted a modern-day prophet to the effect that today we aren't called to cross the plains as our pioneer forbears were, but we are called to cross the street, and share the good news of the gospel with our neighbors and render service to those in need.

He told how a lady had come into the parking lot Saturday morning after we had all left with our work orders. She got out of her car, but didn't approach anybody. Instead she stood in the middle of the parking lot, saying in a loud voice, "Thank you.  Thank you all," and praising God. Someone approached her to ask if she needed help, and she said that we had already helped her, and offered thanks that we were helping her neighbors.

At the end of the service we bowed our heads in a benediction, and then went back to work. I kept praying that God would pour out His tender mercies on the residents stricken by the disaster, and that they would recognize and acknowledge His beneficent and protecting hand.

Half our crew had left Saturday night, and most of the rest left about 10 am Sunday, so the remaining four of us did as much as we could on the last house assigned to us until 12:45, then went back to the church and packed our tents and the truck. The drive home was long and we arrived very late, but the familiar streets of our home town were a welcome sight to me. Even more welcome was the light on in the master bedroom window as we drove up to my house.

It was an exhausting, draining weekend, both physically and emotionally, but it was also very filling and renewing spiritually. 

Before retiring to sleep on Friday, I read in Alma 29, where Alma cries:

"O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people! Yea, I would declare unto every soul that they should repent and come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the earth."

Driving down the streets of neighborhoods where people had lost so much, I was struck that even repentance won't remove all sorrow. In this life we are bound to experience our share of sadness and pain. But then I thought that the Savior took upon Himself our sorrows as well as our sins, and can succor us in our grief for both.

I kept thinking of the scripture in Psalms 30: "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." And I give thanks for the tender mercies of a perfectly loving and omniscient God, and the faith that all things work together for good to them that love and serve Him.